Samuel Jones
Researcher
Samuel Jones is a researcher at Demos. His research interests include culture and the arts, museums and galleries, creativity and the communication of ideas and knowledge through the cultural sector. In particular, he is interested in cross-cultural communications and the role of culture in international relations. In other work, he has focused on Global English and conversations. Recently, he has undertaken research in both the US and China.
at 10:02am
on Wednesday, 19th September 2007
Just a brief post to draw attention to this article in the Guardian.
Apparently, the English language version of the last instalment of the Harry Potter saga sells more overseas than in the UK - people don't want to wait for the translation. A million copies were sold last month in Germany alone, and the Chinese love it, racking up a number of pre-orders 200% higher than the last one.
Apart from wizard-fever, this shows how important popular culture is in relation to the globalisation of English, a theme we discussed in As You Like It. It's also pretty revealing, it's difficult to imagine either a German-language or Mandarin book selling 1m pre-order copies in the UK.
Apparently, the English language version of the last instalment of the Harry Potter saga sells more overseas than in the UK - people don't want to wait for the translation. A million copies were sold last month in Germany alone, and the Chinese love it, racking up a number of pre-orders 200% higher than the last one.
Apart from wizard-fever, this shows how important popular culture is in relation to the globalisation of English, a theme we discussed in As You Like It. It's also pretty revealing, it's difficult to imagine either a German-language or Mandarin book selling 1m pre-order copies in the UK.
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